Inscriptions
and pictorial representations inside tombs give clues to the
mythological context in which the pyramids were built, as well as to
the meanings of architectural features. They contain allusions to
celestial
bodies. Here I briefly describe the salient points of Egyptian religion
(to the best of my knowledge) as backgound to a discussion of the ideas
that may have motivated the builders, beginning
with some notes on the geographical and cultural context.
Overview

Egypt was organised in the name
of religion and the figurehead of pharaoh, the 'living god',
represented a focus of contact with the divine for the whole
population. Reverence for the gods was paramount and life regulated
according to an unceasing round of religious duties - periodic rituals,
the building of temples, the construction of tombs and elaborate
preparations for the afterlife, as well as the establishment of bodies
of priests to maintain these institutions in perpetuity. Local
geographical conditions were imagined to be mirrored in the sky, across
which the gods travelled in their celestial boats to set in the west -
the land of the dead. The western desert border therefore became the
natural site for cemeteries, so that what remains of this ancient
civilisation is largely a record of the rituals of death, the living
historical event buried beneath the rising silt of the Nile.

Origins

According to the accepted view,
civilisations are made possible by settled agriculture producing food
for more people than those necessary to work the land, thus promoting
the division of labour and the establishment of heirarchies. The fact
that Egypt was relatively isolated from other early civilisations in
the Middle East, coupled with what appears as a conscious rejection of
foreign culture, meant that the energies created by surpluses were
turned inwards. The extent of Egypt's debt to Sumer is difficult to
assess (although as regards architectural style in the early dynasties
it is clear enough) but differences are more marked than similarities.
Egypt quickly became a single state governed by a god-king, but Sumer
comprised a competing mass of city states administered by priests
'deputising' for the gods - the mythologies are distinct and it is
difficult to see Egypt merely as a sort of Sumerian colony. Also the
computational methods of Egypt were different from those of Sumer
(although the length of the year and the 'hours of the night' in Egypt
were sexaguesimal as they were in the Mesopotamia). Certain Egyptian
traits find similarities in African tribal customs.

There are further, but more
disturbing, parallels with other ancient cultures : in the Second
dynasty there is evidence of the burial of retainers with their lord -
as was the case in Ur of the Chaldees, An Yang in China, and elsewhere.
Whether the victims were willing sacrifices we have no way of knowing
for it is difficult to understand the feelings and actions of persons
conditioned by a mythic outlook so different from our own, but the
practice speaks of superstition or despotism.

The elite that governed Egypt
shrewdly
linked their power to that controlling the flood on which the life of
Egypt depended, aided by a complex but all-encompassing
mythology
that made heaven a copy of life on earth.Reisner comments : 'The spirit lived as a member of a familiar community
not as an isolated soul dwelling in darkness and amongst strangers'.

It was nevertheless an elite that
had attained its position through the exercise of power (that, at
the end of the Old Kingdom, was to collapse into chaos).
Early Egypt may not have engaged in war so readily as its neighbours
but its existence, like theirs, depended upon this power. In Egypt a
male god gave birth to the world, in stark contradiction to all natural
process, and his progeny on earth, pharaoh, assumed responsibility for
the prosperity of the state - on the famous pre-dynastic 'Narmer
palette' he is shown holding a hoe. He was the central figure in the
birth ritual - the counterpart of the death ritual - in his 'Hebsed'
festival, or 'renewing jubilee', a procession was led by a man holding
aloft the pharaoh's placenta mounted upon a pole - perhaps the
prototype of all flags. As one writer says of pharaoh (1) 'The elites
were symbols of collective sentiment, not raw power. Kings, popes,
flags, parents, and Santa Claus all rolled into one'.

Egyptians claimed that their
civilisation had been founded by divine ancestors. The beginning of the
historical period was commemorated as the 'unification of the two
lands' and repeatedly depicted in the iconography of all later periods
: Egypt was conceived as being divided into two parts - the delta,
'lower Egypt', symbolised by WADJIT the cobra; and the Nile valley
extending to the tropic, 'upper Egypt', symbolised by NEKHBET the
vulture. The heads of these two animals surmounted the double crown of
pharaoh and represented his dominion over the united territory of
Egypt.

The modern tendency has been to
consider that Egyptian civilisation was a natural development of
long-existing pre-dynastic groups - upper Egypt first reached 'critical
mass' and then subdued the people of the delta and other neighbours.
The major pre-dynastic centres appear to have been located in the
south, chiefly in the area near Hierakonpolis, although of course we
have little knowledge of conditions in the north, subsequently
obliterated by the building of the delta, nor the extent of foreign
contact which most likely would have occurred in this area. That there
was such contact is however proven by the existence of Mesopotamian
artefacts, cylinder seals and the like, which have turned up in
pre-dynastic deposits. With the establishment of the Egyptian state
these traits all but disappear and, in remains from the First dynasty,
we are presented with all the essential features of the Egyptian style
- a running hieroglyphic script, furniture, jewellery, the practice of
mummification and burial in extended position - all to be found in the
classic tomb.

How Egypt was unified remains
largely a matter of
guesswork based largely on certain associations represented in the
pictorial art of the period. This lack of evidence is in part due to
the fact that Egyptian history was not smooth but punctuated by two
'intermediate-periods' when society broke down. Climatic change and
fluctuations in the Nile inundations may have created the conditions
for the first of these. At any rate Petrie found that at Giza statuary
had been reduced to fragments in what appears a frenzy of hatred, but
such uprisings are not recorded in state propaganda. Pyramids
supposedly were built for eternity but five hundred years after Khufu
his temple was stripped of reliefs and blocks reused. The few extant
records, such as lists of kings, appear as if manipulated for political
or symbolic ends. There is little trace of an alternative voice, save
for fragments of satirical graffiti.

In the late pre-dynastic period
the archaeological record suggests a rapid period of development
towards the classic style - for example 'proto-hieroglyphs' and the
beginnings of the register system in artistic representation. (So rapid
that earlier excavators (2) tended to the view that a superior culture
had entered Egypt from the 'outside'). It appears that the local
traditions of the numerous small states and tribes inhabiting the
country were incorporated into a unified system of belief. A 'totem' is
a class of natural objects to which members of a clan consider
themselves related (the idea remains with us today when we adopt as
political emblems lions, eagles, and suchlike, the relics of armorial
bearings) and the Egyptians managed to incorporate the totems of each
tribe and district into a complex yet harmonious whole. HORUS the hawk,
THOTH the ibis, ANUBIS the jackal - these were just some of the gods
certain of whose attributes and associations were derived from
pre-dynastic times.

Beliefs

Egyptians believed in the
existence of 'spiritual
bodies' and indulged in magical practices which are described in New
Kingdom papyri. 'Letters to dead' were written by pious supplicants.
The deceased relied upon 'tomb-equipment' - offerings and models of
workers - to provide him with sustenance in the after-life.
Heiroglyphic signs were 'erased' or part-completed apparently in order
to destroy their magic power. All this smacks of simple superstition.
On the other hand it is clear that we are dealing with a pragmatic
state religion in which the social function was paramount, and whose
structure, myths, tenets, and rituals acted to impress upon the citizen
that he lived in an environment self-evidently ordained by the gods.

The Egyptians acknowledged a wide
and somewhat perplexing array of gods (or, perhaps better, 'divine
principles'), many appearing to derive from the totems of pre-dynastic
tribes. These gods were the principal actors in a series of complex and
sometimes contradictory myths. Each myth was associated with a
particular cult centre - the principal ones being at Heliopolis
and Memphis at the division of the two lands, and
at Hermopolis and Thebes in
upper Egypt. Confusion arises because the cosmogonies taught at each
centre appear to us to be contradictory, and involved a different
selection of gods. Some only rose to pre-eminence in later periods - as
with the cult of AMUN at Thebes, while other gods
act out their part in more than one myth - as with THOTH, god of
science and learning, whose chief cult centre was located at Hermopolis,
home of the ancient myth of the Ogdoad.
The chief god of Memphis was PTAH, from whom our
name for the country is derived. The myth of Heliopolis, telling
the story of ISIS and OSIRIS, developed during the pyramid age.

Gods
of the early Old Kingdom

RE
the sun god appears in inscriptions from the late pre-dynastic period.
In the early Old Kingdom he is associated with ATUM at Heliopolis.

HORUS
and SET are attested in pre-dynastic times. These gods are portrayed
uniting the two lands. Set was favoured in the very earliest dynasties,
but later Horus became god of kingship and Set seen as a disruptive
genius. Different celestial bodies were referred to as 'Horus'.
Horus
the falcon-headed god had a cult centre at Khem, or
Letopolis,
during the fourth dynasty. This lies due north from Giza and due west
from Heliopolis.
As time went on Set became increasingly demonized.
Set is portrayed as a peculiar composite with an aardvaak-like snout
and long ears which have been clipped. In the second intermediate
period the Hyksos invaders took up Set, identifying him with Baal.
The elder Horus has no obvious connection with the later
Osiris/Isis/Horus triad

HATHOR,
as her name implies, was the wife of Horus and the most prominent
goddess in the early Old Kingdom. She has a sensual quality.

PTAH
was the creator god of Memphis and of artisans, symbolizing material
transformation. Enigmatically he was said to have created the Ogdoad
and Ennead. His name is thought to be the root of the word 'Egypt'.

THOTH
and his consort SESHAT were the gods of knowledge, writing, and
calculation - length and time. Seshat presided over surveying and her
sanctuary was at Heliopolis. Later developments give Thoth a more
important role in both Heliopolitan and Hermopolitan cosmogonies.

Of the other gods prominent in Old Kingdom times, a
number were dogs :

KHENTAMENTIU was the chief god of Abydos, later to become the cult
centre of Osiris.

ANUBIS was protector of the necropolis in ancient times.

WEPWAWET
protected the movements of the king, whether in war as a battle
standard, or as 'opener of the ways' to help the king travel to the
land of the dead.

(Other dogs include DUAMATEF, one of the sons of Horus, while sometimes
Set is shown as a dog.)

Khufu
is called Khnum Khufu in inscriptions. KHNUM was an ancient deity
originally controlling the inundation. He was also a creator god
(portrayed with a ram's head) who was said to have moulded humans from
clay. He was not however responsible for creating the clay.

The goddess MAAT represented order and truth.
In
Giza royal-family tomb-inscriptions the principal gods mentioned are
Re, Horus, Ptah, Thoth, Hathor and Anubis. There is no Isis and Osiris.

The myth of
Hermopolis - the Ogdoad

The Ogdoad was promoted at Hermopolis and is considered one of the
oldest myths.
There
were eight members : four frogs and their snake consorts
gathered
before creation on the primaeval mound as it emerged from the flood
waters of chaos. They are named as :

The Ogdoad is a personification of the state of chaos - alchemical
metaphors come to mind here. In
the development of this myth the sun god emerges from the primaeval
mound, sometimes described as the 'island of fire', while it is also
said that an egg containing Re was laid on this mound by a celestial
bird. Thoth was later associated with the Ogdoad.

The myth of
Heliopolis - the Ennead

Some
scholars see the myth of Heliopolis
(the 'On' of the Bible) as
being a continuation of
the story of creation after the Ogdoad had done its mysterious
work. According to the
Pyramid Texts, at
Heliopolis a
'pillar' equated the self-created father of the
gods,
ATUM , with the primaeval mound upon which the mysterious
BENNU
bird (illustrated at the beginning of this website) was supposed to
alight. It was upon this 'mound of
creation' that temples were symbolically built.

The
myth of Heliopolis grew steadily in importance and by
classical
times had become much embroidered. It should be noted that the
following summary describes this myth in its fully developed form. What
its exact form was during the pyramid age remains the subject of debate.

The myth was conceived as
bringing order out of chaos and giving justification to the form of the
Egyptian state. The 'city of the sun', across the Nile from Giza, was
of supreme importance during the Old Kingdom, and a number of pharaohs
of this period had the element 'Re' as part of their names - Neferkare,
Menkaure, Djedkare, and so forth. The sun-god was personified in three
forms : Khephere in the morning (a scarab beetle pushing a ball of dung
into which it had laid its eggs), the disc of Re at midday, and the
standing figure of Atum holding a staff in the evening. (It was later
said that the Great Sphinx of Giza symbolised all three forms and this
in turn is thought to have become the basis for the famous Oedipus
riddle).

In the myth of Heliopolis ATUM was
considered the father of the gods. The Heliopolitan group called the
'ENNEAD' comprised 9 gods - 5 'divine' and 4 'semi-human' - and their
origins were as follows :

ATUM (m), self-arising from the
primaeval waters of chaos (NUN), by masturbation created the first pair
- SHU (m) 'air' and TEFNUT (f) 'moisture'. These in turn begat GEB (m)
'earth' and NUT (f) 'sky'.

Geb attempted to mate with his
sister and so their parents 'came between them', and in the iconography
Shu is shown with arms raised holding up the heavenly vault of Nut
while Geb lies recumbent. In spite of this, Geb and Nut managed to
beget OSIRIS (m) and ISIS (f), and SET (m) and NEPTHYS (f) - brothers
and sisters and wives and husbands - 'semi-human' members of
the Ennead, with Set being portrayed with the head of a strange beast.

Accounts of succeeding events are
fragmentary and sometimes contradictory but it is generally agreed that
Set became jealous of his brother Osiris and killed him, and ultimately
succeeded in dismembering his body and distributing its parts
throughout Egypt. Isis then collected these parts together (thus making
the prototype mummy) and brought Osiris back to life to reign as lord
of the 'DUAT' - the mysterious netherworld of the dead.

In the continuation of the myth,
the resurrection of Osiris enables Isis to conceive HORUS (m)
the well-known falcon-headed god (yet distinct from the 'elder
Horus'), who is often depicted as protecting the earthly
pharaohs. Horus fights against Set and succeeds in reclaiming his
rightful inheritance. But the balance between the two gods, often
portrayed as 'the uniting of the two lands', is a dynamic one - Set
represents forces of disorder which must continually be resisted
through the collective efforts of mankind, organised, for this purpose,
into an ideal state headed by pharaoh the living 'son of Re'.

(The role of Set in early
dynasties is unclear - one IInd dynasty pharaoh even appears to have
made Set pre-eminent. Set as a symbol of disorder must be distinguished
from the primaeval chaos from which Atum emerged through his own will.
: in later scenarios Set is even allocated a place in the barque of Re.
De Lubicz suggested that Set's 'asses ears' are clipped so that, like
the fallen angel Satan, he is deaf to order and wisdom).

The supreme importance of the
Ennead and Horus in the New Kingdom is demonstrated by their allocation
to the first ten divisions of the Royal cubit rule - an important
measure of length throughout dynastic Egypt and which was particularly
employed in royal monuments. The Ennead is present in the
earliest-known inscriptions found inside small pyramids of the fifth
and sixth dynasties : the Pyramid Texts. In the
Middle Kingdom the material in these texts was written on coffins, and
in the New Kingdom was elaborated to form the famous 'Book of
the Dead'- a collection of invocations on papyrus to be read
at funeral ceremonies and then buried with the deceased.

The essential part of the Book of
the Dead was the 'negative confession' - the reading over the mummy of
the deceased of a long, formulated list of moral transgressions that he
had resisted during his lifetime. Then, with his relatives
re-enacting the parts of mythic protagonists,
he was imagined to undergo the ceremony called the 'weighing of the
heart' : in which his heart was tested in the balance against the
feather of truth. If he failed in this test he would be devoured by a
fearsome beast and utterly destroyed. But if his heart was true he
would be led into the presence of Osiris - his son as Horus 'opening
the mouth' of the mummy and causing it to enter the world of the Duat.

The broad tenets of Heliopolitan
belief
might not appear greatly different from some of today's monotheist
beliefs - a male god procreating without woman; judgement; life after
death; and the idea that humanity has been created to do god's work.
But in Egypt 'god and caesar' were one : pharaoh, the 'living Horus',
represented the focus of contact with the divine for the whole
population. Egyptian history was the acting out of ritual, and each
succeeding king stood at the beginning of mythological time, overcoming
chaos, and causing Egypt to come into being. A
continuous effort
had to be made against the forces of chaos (one might say against
entropy). The king was the mediator between gods and men and his
essential duty was to maintain the cult rituals and Maat. His name was
written in a 'loop in the thread of time' called a Cartouche -

In
New Kingdom temple depictions of the birth of Horus, Amun-Re takes the
form of a man to impregnate a woman chosen to give birth to
the
future king. Thoth appears to her (like an angel to Mary) to tell her
she has the divine seed inside her and will give birth to the sun and
creator. Consequently the king's mother and multiple wives (who were
often sisters, in an apparent attempt to keep the bloodline pure) had
very important positions at court. But evidence from the earliest
dynasties does not lend much weight to such a scenario.

Tomb inscriptions suggest that the
king's relations to the gods were redefined during the
5th dynasty. The semi-human members of the Ennead were co-opted from
previous traditions by the priests of Heliopolis to construct a myth
which would reinforce the divine
rulership of the king. For example it was said that Thoth had gambled
with the gods to win 5 extra days
to the formal 360 day year, during which the five semi-human members of
the Ennead could be born. Osiris replaced Khentamentiu and ANDJETI, the
original anthropomorphic god of Abydos holding the
crook and flail sceptres (emblems of animal husbandry and agriculture
or, if you will, carrot and stick). The
word 'Ennead', although meaning 'nine', seems to have been
applied to
different numbers of gods, and in the Pyramid Texts only one utterance
has
the 'canonical' list.

Whatever the facts of its origins, the 'passion of
Osiris' appealed to the people :

"In
the Fifty Dynasty [2465-2322 BC] autobiographical texts developed
further to include episodes illustrating the tomb-owner's character and
describe his memorable achievements....The concept of a moral
evaluation was new, and perhaps the result of new religious ideas,
particularly the increased importance of Osiris, which became
widespread during the Fifth Dynasty." (3).

Heaven

Fundamental to the Egyptian
concept of order was the rhythm of the Nile. Each year the rains in
Ethiopia caused the swelling of the river and this produced an annual
flood in Egypt, usually at the end of June. (It was hardly a strict
rhythm - records from the New Kingdom show that the time between
floodings could vary from 345 to 415 days).When the inundation had
subsided, and deposited its fertile silt, the fields would be
re-surveyed and planting begun. The flood occurred at about the time
that Sirius or SOPDET, the brightest star in the sky, first appeared
before dawn over the eastern horizon and traditionally this was taken
to signal the inundation. In early dynasties
depicted as a cow, Sopdet was
later identified with Isis.

The backdrop to the mythological
drama, as
in many other cultures, was the sky. The sky goddess Nut is portrayed
in tombs giving birth to her celestial progeny and along the 'Winding
Waterway', conceived as a body of fresh water like the Nile, the gods
travelled in their celestial boats to set in the west - the land of the
dead. Krauss argued that the Waterway is the band of the ecliptic (4).
(The sun of course was Re and, since the inner planets are always close
to the sun, Krauss proposed that the conflict between Horus and Set is
represented by conjunctions between Venus and Mercury. Bauval proposes
that the Winding Waterway was the Milky Way). The netherworld, called
the DUAT, was pictured as a star in a circle, probably signifying that
part of the sky beneath the earth. Gods needed to transfer from the day
boat to the night boat in their daily round and these boats were often
represented by models or pits, as in the illustration below showing the
boat pits beside Khafre's mortuary temple.

Stars were 'oarsmen' and those
near the ecliptic were
associated with the dead, while the 'imperishable' northern stars which
never set offered renewed life. The Book of the Dead tells us that the
aim of the deceased was to enter into the presence of Osiris, while the
Pyramid Texts make clear that the dwelling of this god was somewhere in
the prominent, man-like constellation Orion, just south of the
ecliptic. Orion was personified as SAH, who
according to the Pyramid Texts was the 'father of the gods'.

'O king, you who are this Great Star, the
Companion of Orion, who traverses the sky with Orion, who navigates the
Duat with Osiris; you ascend from the east of the sky, being renewed in
your due season, and rejuvenated in your due time. The sky has born you
with Orion.' (Pyramid Texts 882, 883).

The sarcophagus containing the
mummy destined to be re-born as 'an Osiris' was associated with Nut -
the first utterance of the Pyramid Texts, inscribed upon the
sarcophagus, reads :

'Recitation by Nut, the great
beneficent. The king is my eldest son who split open my womb; he is my
beloved, with whom I am well pleased.' (Pyramid Texts 1).

In coffins of later periods the
inner side of the lid presents a portrayal of Nut flanked on one side
with Isis/Sirius and Osiris/Orion in their celestial boats (the
southern constellations) and, on the other, a portrayal of the northern
constellations. Similar portrayals have also been found on the ceilings
and walls of certain New Kingdom tombs.

Throughout the pyramid age, the
entrance passages of tombs and pyramids were aligned in the general
direction of the celestial pole - the axis around which the heavens
revolve, and the region of the sky which was given especial prominence
in Egyptian astronomical representations. Also pyramids are laid out
with precision to the cardinal points and it is generally agreed that
to have achieved this the builders must have used astronomical methods,
probably sighting on stars near the pole. (These stars were gods so the
layout of pyramids was no pragmatic exercise but a sacred act). The
precise identification of the stars in these northern constellations is
the subject of some debate. The only constellation identified with
certainty is the Great Bear - represented in New Kingdom times by the
thigh of a bull. Sometimes portrayed are the 'Four Sons of Horus', to
which four organs (lungs, stomach, liver, and intestines : ie. those
involved in the processing of food) were dedicated and preserved
seperately during mummification ceremonies. Perhaps most revealing is
the portrayal of a pregnant Hippopotamus - TAWERET the goddess of
child-birth.

The Egyptians believed in the
existence of a number of spiritual bodies. The KA is variously
translated as 'personality' 'individuality' 'self' and 'lifeforce' -
after death, offerings of food were made to it at a special place in the
tomb. The BA is more difficult to fathom, for even objects had Ba's.
Usually translated as 'soul' it was represented by the Ibis bird.
(Another translation is 'manifestation' : the king's Ba could manifest
in acts). In funerary rituals the body needed to be re-assembled as in
the myth of Osiris, that is, made into a magical mummy or 'established
from decay'. Apparently only then could the Ba 'wake up' the corpse
and, after this, the Ka and Ba 'combined' to make the AKH or 'radiant
light' or 'resurrection body' (represented as the crested Ibis). This
then ascended to Nut to become a star and accompany Re in his boat of
'millions of years'. The place just below the eastern horizon where
heavenly bodies are born was called the AKHET. Hence the 'horizon' of
Khufu' is the place where Khufu was transformed into an Akh.

In the Old Kingdom the king was
considered as embodying the Ka's of his subjects so his rebirth would
ensure that of all, and the pyramid was the magical icon which would
effect this. Among other things, the pyramid appears to represent the
mound of Atum arising from the waters of chaos. In later times, the
pyramid was identified with Osiris :

'O Horus, this King is Osiris,
this pyramid of the King is Osiris, this construction of his is Osiris;
betake yourself to it, do not be far from it in its name of Pyramid.'
(Pyramid texts 1657).

This 'Osiris pyramid' enabled the
dead king to unite with Re the sun god, while kingship was transferred
to his son 'the living Horus'. Thereafter the pyramid was 'maintained'
by a body of priests. Pyramid building thus represented a sort of
contract between the living and the dead, with obligations on both
sides.

Although each pyramid is unique,
with often quite complex passage arrangements, all are broadly similar
: an entrance in the north face opening to a passage directed towards
the polar region, and ultimately terminating in a sarcophagus chamber.
Often this is preceded by an 'ante-chamber'. By studying the Pyramid
texts, Allen (5) was able to throw some light on the meaning of this
layout. He proposes that the texts were meant for the king and the
direction in which they are written leads him out of the pyramid to be
reborn. The sarcophagus chamber is the Duat. The sarcophagus, usually
in the west of the chamber, is Nut the mother of Osiris. When the
king's Ba awakes and leaves the mummy in the Duat, it moves from west
to east - that is, the direction in which the sun moves beneath the
earth to be reborn at the eastern horizon. The ante-chamber is the
Akhet where the king becomes an Akh. The passage in the north wall
leads out to the polar region and ultimately the king is reborn on the
eastern horizon. From this it is reasonable to suppose that the
Egyptians saw the pole as 'the navel of the sky' and the image of the
goddess of childbirth located there supports this. But how did the Akh
of the king appear at the eastern horizon?

THE
STARSHAFTS

The
idea that the narrow-section shafts leading upwards from the King's and
Queen's chambers inside the pyramid of Khufu are 'airshafts' seems to
have originated when the former were first cleaned out and found to
introduce fresh air into the chamber. Pyramidologists took up the idea,
believing that the King's chamber contained a standard of measure which
needed to be kept
at a constant temperature. I do not know who first suggested that the
shafts were constructed to supply fresh air to workers, or those
attending upon a burial, but this unlikely idea has been widely
accepted until very recently.

Some Egyptologists propose a 'cultic' meaning
whereby, for example, the shafts allowed something akin to a 'soul' to
leave or enter the tomb. It is well known from texts, tomb decorations,
and coffin lids, that Egyptian gods had a celestial aspect. Most
pyramids have 'polar' entrance passages, so-called because they point
towards the circumpolar stars (or, according to the ancient Egyptians,
the 'imperishables' - the stars that never set). This proposition
appears to be generally accepted even though polar passage
angles vary and no specific stellar target has been identified. In fact the evidence suggests that passage angles were determined primarily using geometry and proportion - this is effectively the 'language' of the pyramids.

The
idea that Khufu's shafts were directed to stellar targets seems to have
been rejected because the suggested alignments are not absolutely
precise. The probable targets of the king's chamber
shafts were identified by Badawy and Trimble in 1964 (6) as Orion's
belt and Thuban. In
1993 Gantenbrink used robots to explore (so far as he was
permitted - he incurred the displeasure of egyptian authorities and replaced by a team from National Geographic magazine) not only these but the Queen's chamber shafts as
well. Using Gantenbrink's data, Bauval
proposed that the Queen's chamber shaft targeted Sirius, and Kochab in
Ursa Minor. He concluded that
these
four passages had been aimed at specific stars, making a pattern very
similar to the coffin lid illustrated above (7).

He noticed that
the angle given by Gantenbrink for the north starshaft of the Queen's
Chamber aligns tolerably well to the upper culmination of Kochab.
At the moment of this event Orion's belt,
that is to say the target of the King's chamber south shaft, was rising
on the eastern horizon as shown in the illustration below. (At an azimuth of approximately 108 degrees - the angle of
the pentagon. This calls to mind the five-spoked hieroglyph
for a star and the 'DUAT' - Al Nitak rose at 108
degrees in 2650 BC, when it is generally believed construction of large pyramids was beginning).

In fact three stars were in alignment with
the pole and meridian : the Great and Little Bears were in alignment on
opposite sides of the pole. This method of establishing north later became known as the 'simultaneous transit method', using a string and plumb bob. When this alignment reached the meridian
- Orion was 'born'. Looking north at this epoch -

He also noted that the
constellations of
the Great and Little Bears resembled the 'adzes' used in portrayals of
the ceremony of the 'Opening of the Mouth', performed on the mummy of
the dead king to give it life (and by the way also performed to 'give
life' to statues, a practice found also in Mesopotamia). (7)

The name of the ceremony itself
suggests a metaphor derived from the common experience of Midwives -
the need to clear the air passages of the newly born so that it can
breathe and receive sustenance (8)). The Great Bear (the Egyptian
constellation of the 'Thigh') was associated with the Four Sons of
Horus and the cardinal points, and seems in some way to have generated
the force that turned the sky. (In the illustration above the figure of
'Wepwawet' the jackal, 'Opener of the Ways' has been included). It
appeared that the Egyptians had devised a myth, enacted in the heavens
yet paralleled in common human experience. Even the symbolic flint
implements used for cutting the foetal chord have been found at Giza,
marked with the name of
Khufu.

Bauval
believed he could extract a corrected date for Giza based on the mean
angles of the shafts of 2450 BC. (9). Unfortunately it does not work.The mean angles of the shafts
in degrees were given by Gantenbrink as follows :

The mean of these dates is not 2450 BC. Bauval suggested that the
discrepancy can be explained as building error.

However,
the shafts are not straight but made up of straight sections,
and
numerous bends near the chambers, so it is obvious that the builders
had no interest in maintaining unbroken 'lines of sight' to their
stellar targets. Tedder noted that the final section of KC north is
built with a slope of 31.2 degrees, and this was the altitude
of
Thuban in 2570 BC - within the presently accepted dates for Khufu. (At this date
Alnilam, the middle star of the belt, fits KC the south shaft alignment more precisely than Alnitak). Thuban
was the pole star at this time.

The alignment of the QC shafts is more problematic, the dates given by measured shaft angles give dates that are too young for the supposed star culminations. Even so, to find the southern shafts of Khufu aligned, if only notionally, towards the two important stellar targets, Sirius and Orion, remains compelling. But there is no evidence
pointing to an association with Sirius and Osiris during Khufu's time. 150
years later these associations seem to be in place. Yet the
architecture of Khufu's and 5th dynasty pyramids remains essentially
the same, and one would expect the 'function' of their architectural
features, and the rituals that are known to have taken place, to be
similar also. If Khufu was not mummified as an 'Osiris' (so without the
fratricide and ensuing pathos) was it enough to become an 'Akh'? While
Isis and Osiris are mentioned in the Pyramid Texts they are hardly
major stars in the pantheon of gods addressed (or 'threatened' if the
king be barred from joining Re!). Is the first humble appearance here
of
Isis and Osiris representative of a growing 'saviour' sect within the
Egyptian
'church' which nevertheless had to be included in the list of spells
'just
to be on the safe side'?

A note on the Stellar Correlation Theory

As a result of its extensive
promotion most readers will be familiar with Bauval's proposal that the
three Giza pyramids were laid out in the pattern of stars of Orion's
belt. Since the south shaft of the King's chamber points to this
asterism the idea cannot be lightly dismissed,
but on closer examination there are many problems.
In
the development of this hypothesis, Bauval suggested that the remaining IVth
dynasty pyramids also corresponded to stars - the unfinished pyramids
at Zawiyet El Aryan and Abu Rawash representing two other stars of the
Orion configuration, Bellatrix and Saiph, while the Dashur pyramids
represented two stars of the Hyades cluster in the constellation
Taurus. However, while the northern 'red' pyramid of Dashur might
correlate with the bright orange star Aldebaran, for the southern
'bent' pyramid there is no bright star candidate, so why was this
pyramid built equal in size to its northern neighbour? Similar
objections apply to further attempts to correlate stars with pyramids.
The pyramids of the Vth and VIth dynasties contain the very Pyramid
Texts that speak of a stellar destiny yet the positions of these
small pyramids cannot be correlated with stars on a one-to-one basis.
Therefore, if the theory is true, these pyramids can only
have represented stars near Orion in a general
sense, their
dimensioning and locations being determined by other factors According
to this view Giza might represent 'an essential prototype' : the
'magnum opus' of Old Kingdom funerary monuments.

In the further development of his
ideas Bauval claimed that the layout of the Giza pyramids, along an
azimuth 45 degrees from north, reproduced the pattern of the belt stars
as they lay on the meridian in 10450 BC at the lowest point of their
precessional cycle. New evidence appeared to show that the Sphinx was
extremely ancient and the suggestion was made that the whole site may
have been laid out at this early date. Speculation arose that Giza had
been designed by god-like beings from fabled Atlantis. A claim was even
made that there were also pyramids and a 'sphinx-like' face on the
planet Mars. Exciting stuff but rather unlikely.

That the Egyptians had copied the
belt stars seemed not unreasonable - the correspondence between the positions
of these stars and the Giza pyramid trio seemed not so far fetched, and the small discrepancies in
position might be ascribed to the need for the layout to conform to
geometric constraints. But what of the orientation of the three pyramid
centres? This might be expected to reproduce the configuration of the
belt as it lay on the meridian in 2450 BC (the revised date for Khufu
put forward by Bauval). Yet it did not.

As we have seen, the Giza group is
laid out along a 45 degree diagonal. The layout position for the belt
is achieved when the star Saiph, in the 'left leg' of Orion/Osiris,
lies vertically below the star Al Nitak. (Comparable to the simultaneous transit method for determing north using a string and plumb bob). But, as may be seen from these
comparison pictures of Alnitak on the meridian, this was not case in
10450 BC -

But
did the layout orientation need to match the position of the belt on
the meridian? As the constellation of Orion moves across the sky from
horizon to horizon its orientation changes, and at a certain moment the
belt will appear in the layout position. I noticed that in 2450 BC (the
revised date given by Bauval for Giza) this moment was defined when
Thuban reached the meridian at its lower culmination. This star, at its
upper culmination, was the target of the King's chamber north starshaft
and at this date had a right ascension of 12 hours and at this moment
the altitude of Al Nitak was about 37 degrees, while its azimuth was 37
degrees east of south -

At the estimated date of 2570 BC
for Khufu this relation is lost, yet the idea that the builders had
copied an image of the belt as it hung over the south eastern horizon
remained
compelling. The concept of vertical star pairings appeared already to
have been exploited in the planning of the north shafts of
Khufu.
Recently Tedder has taken up the idea. He points
out that a number of pyramid sites (or the edge of the western
escarpment in the Memphite zone) fall on the 37 degree alignment as
shown below (south is up on this diagram). Note that the Dashur
pyramids do not fit in this scheme -

Subsequently Spence (11) took up this idea and, noticing a trend in pyramid orientation over time (as a result of precession, an idea originally put forward by
Haack (12)) thought this might be a way of dating the pyramids. However this required some convoluted reasoning regarding the discrepant orientation of Khafre among other things. (update 2017.
Recently Puchkov (13) has put forward an alternative solution to the problem. He proposes that the stars used for the simultaneous transit method were not Mizar and Kochab, but Mizar and Pherkad, and this provides a much better fit (he follows Magli (14) in concluding that Khufu and Khafre were laid out together to solve the discrepancy) but requires a date 200 years earlier than conventional dating (based on derivative and incomplete listing of the reigns of kings). However these early dates are supported by radiocarbon dating. The jury is still out).

The Global Context

Lethaby remarked : 'The common
places of poetry, in which the world is likened to a building,
'heavenly vaults', or 'azure domes', 'gates of sunrise', and the rest,
are survivals of a time when the earth was not a tiny ball, projected
at infinite speed through immeasurable space, one, among other
fireflies of the night, but was stable and immoveable, the centre of
the universe, the floor on which the sky was built. The whole, a
chamber lighted by the sun, moon, and stars'. (15). He proposed that
temples were built in the likeness of this world - their foundation a
sacred ceremony and their relation to the heavens defined by
observation. In recent decades research by archaeoastronomers has
revealed that ancient sites worldwide were laid out with reference to
heavenly bodies. In most cases these involve horizon alignments to the
sun and moon at the extreme points of their cycles. For instance the Ka'ba in Mecca
is oriented in such a way.

Many cultures have seen their
mythologies enacted in the heavens (and the gods of ancient Greece are
still with us as planets and the zodiac) although, of course, the
figures they saw in the patterns of the stars sometimes differed
greatly. The diagram below shows the system devised by a contemporary
Amazon tribe (16) : the ideal distribution of of a phatry of three
intermarrying Colombian tribes is considered as a hexagon. Tribal
territory is bounded by 6 waterfalls and these are imagined to have
stellar counterparts, and tribal longhouses are built according to the
same model. The equator, marked by two other major waterfalls, passes
through the centre of the hexagon. Its heavenly counterpart is imagined
to be an alignment from Sirius through Orion's belt to Aldebaran, and
then on to the Pleiades (this corresponding to the path from marriage
to death). Men and women each have their own 'quest' - in the centre of
the figure is shown the overlapping male/female dance pattern (copying
the pattern of stars in Orion) and the vertical axis leads from a
central rock covered with petroglyphs to Al Nilam -
the central star in Orion's belt.

Given the clear desert air of
Egypt and
the sophisticated wealth of its civilization one might expect that
'heaven had been brought down to earth', and to find astronomical
alignments in sacred buildings. Indeed, 100 years ago Lockyer wrote a
book on the subject (17). Unfortunately he was an outsider, an
Astronomer, and the Egyptologists of the day 'advised the cobbler to
stick to his last'. Perhaps in a decade or two sufficient
studies will have been made to make a proper assessment of Egyptian
Astronomy. Meanwhile it is impossible to make any definite statement.
RJC. 2002. (Note 2017. Work has been in progress at a number
of temples and will be described in a future update).

7. Bauval, R.G. and A. Gilbert. 1994.The Adze of Upuat : The Opening of the Mouth Ceremony and the Northern Shafts in Cheops' Pyramid. Discussions in Egyptology.

8. Roth, A.M. 1993. 'Fingers, Stars, and the "Opening of the Mouth" : the nature and function of the NTRWJ - blades'. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. Vol. 79. London. Roth notes that the ceremony of 'Opening the Mouth' of statues has parallels in early Mesopotamian civilisation.

9. Bauval, R.G. 1993. 'Cheops' Pyramid : A new Dating using the Latest Astronomical Data'. Discussions in Egyptology.. 26. This dating was supported by Spence but has since been thrown into serious doubt. The presently accepted date for the middle of Khufu's reign is around 2580 - 2570 BC. (But see note 13).

15. Reichel-Dolmatoff, G. Astronomical Models of Behaviour among some Indians of Colombia'. New York Annals. 385.

16. Lockyer, J.N. 1894. The Dawn of Astronomy. London.

THE GEOMETRY OF KHUFU SHAFTS

In
1993 Gantenbrink set his famous robot to explore the shafts (so far
as he was permitted - he incurred the displeasure of the egyptian authorities and was replaced by a team from National Geographic magazine) and announced his preliminary results. He found
that the shafts are not perfectly straight and the average angles he
gave were as follows :

KC north 32.6
KC south 45
QC north 39.1 approximately
QC south 39.6

The
first two of these angles corresponds to the gradient 7/11, and the
second 1/1, and together they describe the shape of the
pyramid.Gantenbrink estimated
that the outlets of the king's chamber shafts lie 154 (2 X 77) cubits
above pavement, and are seperated by a horizontal distance of 198
cubits (280/198 is the same root two relation governing the level of
the King's Chamber floor) -

Legon
proposed that the Queen's chamber shafts are symmetrical, each having
a gradient of 17/14 -

Suggesting a plan like this -

Examing
these shafts in more detail, it is seen that the northern
shafts
form a series of bends near to the chambers so as to avoid the Grand
Gallery -

The
south shaft of the King's Chamber varies near the chamber.
The south shaft is straight (or rather is made up of long
straight sections) over much of its length, and
the point of convergence of thef two KC shafts would seem to have been
planned in whole numbers of cubits -

In
the case of the Queen's Chamber south shaft, the line of the shaft cuts
the central axis 36 to 37 cubits above base. If the builder's had laid
out this shaft according to Legon's proposal then it would need to
intersect the central axis 35 to 36 cubits above base, in a similar
configuration to the line of the northern shaft on the right -

Perhaps this is nitpicking but it is possible that an alternative
geometry was used -

From
measurements of Gantenbrink's published diagrams, QC south
has a sloping length of 121 cubits (from the centre of the pyramid to
its termination by the famous 'door') for a vertical rise of 77 cubits
- giving an angle of just over 39.5 degrees. (Measured angle is 39.6).
The door is 114 cubits above base. Note that the angle proposed is that of the
hypoteneuse of a near Pythagorean triangle with sides 363, 280, 231 -
so that if a square is drawn on the height of the pyramid and divided
by 3 the door is 93.3 cubits horizontally from centre. (A threefold division also determines the junction of ascending
and descending passages, as shown to the right).revised
May 08